EAW CODE  6-20-2024

Written and Edited By: MarkEAW

[ GOTO THE MAIN EAWHS PAGE ]

 

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

VOLUNTEER PROGRAMMER NEEDED | MAJOR UPDATES | SOURCE CODE

 

INTRODUCTION

This document was written to help obtain a capable volunteer programmer or two for EAW.

There is no programmers available to update the code to issue hardware repairs to the game at this time. Not many of the current EAW source code users have looked for new programmers, so everyone else is. A few of the past old timer EAW users have tried to find someone in the past , but no luck in the end. So I thought I'd re-mention it here.


VOLUNTEER PROGRAMMER NEEDED

The real EAW community is in need of Volunteers to code updates for this Windows 95 designed game. Too distribute fixed eaw.exe's etc... at their own leisure and that can use input from EAW users effectivly.

The game currently runs natively under legacy compatibility layers or fixes provided by WinXP , WinVista (and the newer modern Window OS's, like Win7, Win8.1 and Win10); In most situations an external Wrapper Program or Registry Fix is needed to run the game with out problems, or with reduced issues.

If anyone is really willing and capable of doing the updates below, let us know.


MAJOR UPDATES

These are the major things that need to be improved to keep EAW compatible.

  • DirectX version needs to go from DX5/6 to at least 9.0c/9_1 so modern drivers and hardware can be taken advantage of by the game and so the GPU's video control panel settings will all work properly. (There is No Horizon Fog in D3D when using Nvidia Cards and there are lower Frames per second in DD/D3D performance in flight), an update to DX in the game will improve these.

  • The 8-bit in game front-end works correctly with Windows10, however for older versions of WindowsOS an update to 32-bit would be preferable. Right now it uses the old DirectDraw to display. Its faulty; the menu, map and briefing screens do not have perfect color, and at times are garbled (tearing), sometimes corrupt. (However in Win10 the game looks proper with its compatibility fix applied).

  • Memory management intended for Win95 is CPU intensive (system memory) rather than using GPU memory.

  • Add modern Hardware compatibility, primarily proper full GPU usage.

  • File save EAW error on Windows 10. In particular career saves do not save, since at least 12-2023.

  • other??

See my various other 'Help Documents' for mentioned issues that hamper EAW from working correctly, natively. My 'First Use Help Document' has a list of other known issues that effect all versions / types of EAW.

 

SOURCE CODE

The source code was obtained fully by about August of 2005. It was pieced together from various programmers and archives, (It was not from MPS or Atari, the code was "lost" at one point). It was finally made working before 2006 where a few changes where added, to produce a game ready 1.2x version executable.

The fixed up working source code is in a mixture of "C", "C++" and assembler. You can use Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 (In WinXP) to work on and compile the code. A custom DX6 SDK (although the DX7 SDK should also work) can be used, or use what ever you want. I'd like to see Open Watcom to be used for modern programming, but again, up to you.

Contact me on the CombatACE Forums, @MarkEAW for the source or download the original 1.2x, here: source. I don't pretend to know if it is all there, but I have many other files that may contain other forms of the code I can provide with some guidance.

 

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